Out to Paradise on Sunday

Last Sunday I went out with some friends from Cat High for lunch. We went to Tao's Restaurant at Paradiz Plaza and chatted over their exquisite lunch for hours. It was a pretty sleek place and excellent for meeting up with friends, and its food is certainly good and unique.

It has been a very long time since we all got together: Wang Jiunn, Colin, Matt, Ewen, Zhi Guo and myself. It all started off when Matt suggested that we should get together, then the both of us contacted everyone and settled on a date, though the place was not decided until pretty late. It will probably be the last get-together before a very long time: Matt is going back to Australia after CNY, and Zhi Guo is flying to under Down Under to bring balance to the cow-Force (to make true again the sentence of "纽西兰有三百万头乳牛。三百万，跟新加坡人口一样多！" - sorry ZG, NZ always remind me of this Fernleaf commercial from a long long time ago.)

Anyway, it appears as if most have not changed. Too bad we couldn't have Aaron to join us; he's off on exchange to US.

Here are a selected few of the photos I took of the food there. There was a group photo as well, but it was too blur...

Squeezed State

Okay, this week has been quite a mad rush for me, especially after mid-week. I quite had no time for a breather, and have been reaching home after 10. Glad that the weekend is here.

Phew...

How Wrong is the Principal?

After a long hiatus from commenting on local socio-political events, here's my observations and thoughts about the incident of the principal and the secondary five students.

Into a YouTube World

It has been quite a week, with the abrupt acceleration into school life. This weekend is a nice respite. To celebrate the break and the return to a life of YouTube, here's a couple of videos to brighten your day.





Both are sketches from a series of TV show called Not the Nine O'Clock News nearly thirty years ago.

I Hate My Timetable

With some tutorial timings still unknown, the final timetable is still not out yet, but what's for sure now is that

1) I have lessons on all five days of the week, with lessons starting at 0800 everyday except for Wednesday, which begins at 1000.

2) There are two days in which I can only leave school after sundown. One is due to a lesson from 1800 to 2000, the other due to SPS seminars (though it is not compulsory for me to attend) from 1900 to 2100.

3) The final insult is that most of the slots in between are empty!

And now that I commute to and fro home everyday, it means extremely limited sleep for me. I wake up at about 0530 and leave home at 0600 everyday so I can avoid the morning rush in the public transport. And sometimes I reach home past 1000, stretching very thin the promise to myself of seven hours of sleep a day.

Bummers... bad semester timetable.

P.S.: Oh yay, 200th post!

P.P.S.: I went for blood donation just now. I'm not sure how the nurse screwed the needle in, but my arm is a bit sore.

Back to the Beginning

So here goes, the beginning of the new semester, and last if I do not choose/qualify for honours. It was a pretty good semester the last, though I wonder how much the fact that it was a non-NUS semester mattered in that evaluation. One thing's for sure, it is unlikely that I'll be working as hard as I did in the past NUS-semesters.

Nope, don't get me wrong. It's possible that I'll still be rather busy, but I think I won't be laying my brains on the anvil too often now. At least I hope to do that after having a relatively relaxed semester.

I wonder if I could stick to that.

Home

Okay. I'm back.

Not gonna say much since I've still got quite some packing to do.

The weather's damn bloody humid by the way. Feels so uncomfortable breathing.

Return Trip

Just a quick note to all those wondering: I'll be back in Singapore on the night of the 8th, i.e. next Tue.

Don't bother trying to catch me to go out on the 9th though: I'll be in NUS settling some stuff.

Lightning Up Sydney's Skies

So in the end my one day travel to Sydney for the New Year's Eve countdown ended pretty much without major hitches. All in all it was quite a worthy experience, though the wait was pretty lengthy. Fortunately I had a book that kept me busy for most of the day, and my laptop for the night.

Our viewing spot was quite ideal as well, having a face-on view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the Sydney Opera House at the background (though of course this meant that the lighting display is facing the other side). We were sitting quite near the river as well, but we were on the tarred road just behind a concrete roadblock which provided marginal shade (we were early enough for a good spot but not early enough for the grass).

Anyway, there were two major displays of firework. The first is a relatively short one at 9 p.m. to warm the atmosphere up. It lasted about seven minutes.





The big one was at midnight, lasting about fifteen minutes. I believe it is orchestrated against some music, but to hear that we need to tune in to a radio broadcast, and I'm simply too lazy to do that. They could've had some sound speakers at the viewing spots though.






The final one had not only the bridge and the numerous floating barges shooting off fireworks, but also from the rooftop of a couple of skyscrapers. All in all it was quite impressive.

Anyway, the entire viewing area was packed, which meant it took quite some time for us to get out to our car. And then came a minor hitch we failed to anticipate: we were stuck in traffic for hours. The highway was simply choked: the two-lane roads simply couldn't handle the expected 1.5 million people and the CBD roads and bridge closure. We plodded on for hours before finally managing to turn out at the next available exit, and then started to trace through the minor suburban roads that were literally traffic-free. It was a long detour, but it certainly saved us much needed time.

Oh, and before it slips my mind, Happy New Year to all!